terminal velocity
by Melitza
Summary: Given another chance, another time, another place - they could have been great. This is their story - a slice of life and second chances, in which fate acts as gravity between them. A sasusaku in the making. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

terminal velocity

A slice of life and second chances. 9.81m/s^2 is the rate at which she falls.

Because like gravity, these ties are inescapable, inexorable, and

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"_In another time… another place… we could have been great."_

_=0=_

_He had the gall to look perturbed – and maybe he was. Maybe he hadn't expected her to pull that last punch. She hadn't expected to either – but that was the funny thing about unconditional devotion._

"_I wish…" She trailed off – tried to breathe, and realized she couldn't. The stale half-breath mixed with blood in her lungs would be her last._

_She wished for so many things it was hard to pick just one. She wished to laugh again – cry, even, if only once more. She wished to hug Naruto so hard that he would squirm and complain that she was breaking his ribs. She wished she could tug on Ino's ponytail and tell her she was beautiful – tell her she always had been. She wished she could thank Tsunade for teaching her the meaning of true strength._

_She wished he had used any attack but chidori –any other attack, she could have healed._

_As it were, the tissue had been burnt away, leaving nothing of her innards to mend and repair with that perfect chakra control. A terribly ironic waste, like her life before it._

_She felt as if she was falling, and it was the only sensation she had ever known. The synapses fired in her brain, and in retrospect, it was galling, how much of her life had revolved around this boy. These were her last images – and none of them were happy._

"I love you with all my heart!"

"I would do anything for you!"

"Sakura. Thank you."

"_I wish… I had never loved you."_

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Push stop.

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=0=

Fast Forward.

Another time. Another place.

Press play.

=0=

They first met in the sandbox when they were 4 years old. He strode up with all the innocent confidence that only one under half a decade in age could possess and stuck his hand out at her, undoubtedly mimicking the way he had seen his mommy and daddy meet and greet friends before.

"My name is Sasuke," he announced, as if it was some great thing.

"Sakura," she replied, but only because it was the polite thing to do. She did not take his hand though, and he seemed just as puzzled by that as she.

Unabashed, he tried again with an exuberant, "I like building sandcastles. Would you like to build one together?"

When she looked at him, she didn't understand the strange hurtful squeezing in her chest. Later years of experience would pinpoint it as regret, sadness and hurt. At the time, she only knew she didn't like it.

"Ano," she hummed, and stood. "Mum – mum! I want to go home."

Even at 4 tender years of age, she knew she was being rude – but when her lip started to quiver, her mother dutifully opened her arms and let Sakura hide her face in a hug. She pretended she was just shy, and they must have bought it because that was the laughing explanation her mother gave to the beautiful Uchiha matriarch smiling benignly at the scene from the side.

She felt him watching her back, and could only guess at the expression of puzzlement and hurt playing on his face. For some reason, it made her feel strangely satisfied.

The next week, when she met an exuberant young boy with bright yellow hair, loud blue eyes and a mouth to match, she displayed none of the inhibited aversion she had the week before. She started kindergarten and met dozens of other kids just like her – kids whose very presence tugged at her heartstrings and made her feel whole and complete in a familial way she wouldn't come to appreciate until she was much older.

If her mother noticed her singular aversion towards Uchiha Sasuke, she certainly never mentioned it.

=0=

Press stop.

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	2. Chapter 2

Fast Forward.

A few years pass by.

Press play.

=0=

They attended the same schools growing up, but never became close friends. They knew each other in that cool acquaintance kind of way – the way where you see someone you know in the supermarket and try to avoid eye-contact, but smile tightly and nod politely when you inevitably fail. Even as their social circles mingled (how could they not, when Sakura adored the bright blonde haired Naruto, who made her feel safe and happy and content – who in turn chummed with Sasuke, perhaps because he was such a calming contrast to his own exuberant personality?), they themselves did not. Of that, Sakura made sure.

She was never deliberately cruel to the youngest Uchiha prodigy – she would never be deliberately cruel to _anyone_. For some reason, she was particularly sensitive to bullying. She didn't know precisely why – she hadn't been bullied much as a kid, partly thanks to Ino sticking up for her so resiliently, and partly thanks to her own plucky, tomboyish in-your-face attitude. Nonetheless, something rankled inside when kids were mean as kids are wont to be.

That didn't mean she needed to chum up to him, however. On days she sat with Naruto at the lunch table, she only gave perfunctory, polite responses when it was absolutely necessary. In class, when seated near him, she only spoke to him when he pointedly addressed her.

She thought she would grow out of that abject horror she had felt when she met him as a child. She didn't.

One-class primary school gave way to junior high. By 10th grade, they were privileged to choose their own classes and schedules in the block scheduling set up. Sadly, there were only so many college-prep classes offered – it wasn't a large town, and they were both grade-A students, so it shouldn't have come as any great surprise that their schedules still overlapped.

By high school, it seemed as if most girls had gone in-and-out of crush of Uchiha Sasuke. Even Ino had a brief moment in which he had piqued her interest, and jovially, she had teased Sakura, inviting her to make it some game between them.

"Come on, Forehead," she whined, prodding Sakura in the side. "We can be rivals in love – it'll make us even closer! Imagine, loving the same man!" She clasped perfectly manicured hands over her heart. Her blue-sparkled French-tips glittered to match overly-enthusiastic eyes. Sakura snorted.

Ino read too many romance novels – and in all practicality, they hadn't been 'rivals' in years. Though they had shared classes in remedial school and fleeting memories of arguing over the brightest crayons or the cutest backpack lent a backdrop to their relationship, stronger still was the memory of Ino beating up the first kid who had teased Sakura about her forehead when she was a child.

And, of course, Ino often brought that up in that braggart, offhand manner that was so typically _Ino_. Sakura didn't mind, though, because she knew that unspoken behind it was another memory, of Sakura laying out the first boy who dared tug on Ino's ponytail back in their playground days. In retrospect – knowing what she knew now – Sakura realized the dog-loving little Kiba-kun had probably just been flirting in the way young children do – but at the time, Sakura had only seen tears flash in Ino's eye and had acted on impulse.

They had been best friends ever since.

And if Kiba edged warily away whenever Sakura flashed a glimpse of temper – well – all the better.

Sakura flipped the page of her chemistry book and didn't spare Ino a second glance. "You can have him, Pig."

Ino pursed super-shiny, glossed-up lips into a pretty pout. "Where's the fun in that?"

"It seems stupid to fight over a boy," Sakura replied dispassionately. She had a weird-feeling of déjà vu, like this had all happened before and gone terribly, terribly wrong. It was a feeling she had a lot.

Deflated, Ino collapsed on the bed next to Sakura, wrinkling her nose at the chemistry book. She wasn't going into the sciences, and she made her disdain for the topic known at every possibly avenue. "Oh, whatever. I was just trying to bait you. Everyone knows he has a thing for you, anyway."

Sakura's hand stilled on the page she was about to turn. She started to pick at the edge, but caught herself at it before Ino did. Calmly, she eyed the diagram explaining covalent bonding, and willed her seized heart to beat normally.

"I don't like him," she said carefully. The words tasted bitter on her tongue – but not quite as bitter as the thought of… something else. A thought that flittered just out of teach, tickling her fingertips, but never quite able to grasp into clarity. Sakura shook her head to clear it.

Ino burrowed her chin over Sakura's shoulder, puffing irritatingly into her cotton-candy locks as she pretended to share the study-material. "Yeah, I know. I don't know why, though. I mean, he might be a little reserved – maybe a tiny bit smidgen and broody – but I think it's only an act he's assimilated into to cope with Naruto's _over_-enthusiasm for life. He's been nothing but polite to _you_, though."

"And I've been nothing but polite to him," Sakura replied primly. She shifted uncomfortably to her side, meaningfully elbowing Ino off her shoulder as she huffed and returned to the book.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Ino eying her contemplatively, but the blonde bombshell apparently deigned the topic old-news readily enough once it was clear she wasn't going to rile any sort of reaction out of Sakura.

It took her uncharacteristically long to turn to the next page. And when she did, she shoved her hand hurriedly back beneath the book to hide the trembling.

=0=

Press stop.

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	3. Chapter 3

Fast forward.

High school ushers in.

Press play.

=0=

Sakura sat in the front row, as per usual. Part of the decision came from being a Type-A-Personality kind of student. The other part (the small, niggling little reasoning that she never acknowledged as anything more than a negligible part of her subconscious) reasoned that it had as much to do with sitting in a position to avoid eye contact with any of the other students.

The advanced-placement courses would certainly give her a leg-up on college… and she understood that only a select number of people would be in those classes…. But honestly, it made her a little uncomfortable to be in a setting even this intimate with the Uchiha.

Maybe Ino was right – maybe he did have a "thing" for her –

The banging of the classroom door startled her, shaking loose the panic before it could grow unabated in her chest. Iruka-sensei grinned, clearly pleased at having startled his latest crew of AP-chemists.

"Alright, class. Usually I pair you guys up into partners for the duration of the year –" the class erupted into a fit of scandalized and enraged whispers and protests. "_- but_," he continued, unperturbed, snapping the roaring class back to immediate silence with a sharp clap of hands, "- in light of this being an advanced college-prep course and all, I'm going to trust you guys on this one, and let you pair up yourselves. Who knows, maybe if you already hang out outside class a lot, you'll fit advanced chemistry into your conversations a little more often. And if you don't hang out outside of class a lot – well, once your partners, you will!"

He gave an evil little chuckle, complete with creepy-fingers in front of the face, and the class responded with a collective groan. After a few extra moments of stillness, he cocked his head and snapped impatiently. "Well, what's taking you so long? Get to it! Pair up! Go go go, we have a syllabus to follow here!"

Sakura leapt to her feet and whirled around -

To find Uchiha Sasuke already standing in front of her.

Something seized in her chest; she grabbed side of the desk to steady herself. She had felt fine a minute ago, but now she felt a little sick.

"Would you like to be lab partners?" Sasuke asked. He sidestepped back into her path when she made a move to go around him.

"I was going to ask Hinata…" She tried to look over his shoulder, but he moved seamlessly to block her view, as if on purpose. Pointedly, he looked over his shoulder in her stead.

"Looks like Kiba already got her," he replied. "Maybe to avoid getting you?" He was making a joke, of course – Kiba being afraid of Sakura knocking him on his ass again was a widespread and well-known anecdote among the students of Konoha High. In truth, they were good friends, but they both liked to make a big show of the intimidation factor just to yuck it up.

In reality, just about everyone knew that Kiba had a crush on Hinata (with the sole exception of Hinata herself). Normally, Sakura would have given an internal cheer for the two pairing up as lab partners. Now, it was all Sakura to do to keep from cursing.

Sasuke, oblivious to her internal ire, cocked a half smile at her, and some part of her recognized that he looked quite handsome when he did that. The rest of her, however, ground to a shuddering halt, and on instinct, she took a step back.

She didn't return the smile. "Yeah, maybe," she replied distractedly, still trying to look around him, beyond him – anywhere but _at _him.

"Well, how about it?" he prompted.

"How about what?"

"Lab partners?"

Giving up on looking over his shoulder, she looked back over hers. "Looks like Shino still needs a partner…" she demurred.

"I asked _you_." He paused expectantly. She stared at the floor.

Just when the awkward silence felt like it had stretched into forever, he spoke up. "Why don't you like me?" He asked quietly, so no one else would overhear. For some reason, he sounded hurt.

"I don't 'not like' you…" she hemmed. '_I'm afraid of you_,' her inner drawled pointedly. '_I'm so very, very afraid of you, and I have no idea why._' Sakura averted her eyes. "I just…"

"One more minute, and if you're not done by then, I'll pair you up myself!" Iruka-sensei called from the front of the classroom. The wild chatter in the classroom rose an octave in pitch.

"Excuse me," she murmured, and turned around.

Shino was quiet, and she didn't know him that well, but he was smart and a hard worker. She thought he would make an excellent lab partner.

She was right.

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Press stop.

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	4. Chapter 4

Fast Forward.

Graduation day. Letting go.

Press play.

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The gymnasium air was hot, stuffy, sticky, and veritably vibrating with excitement. Boys' gowns were green, sickly yellow for the girls. For all the bellyaching everyone had done in the weeks leading up ("This is a _travesty! _The yellow contrasts with my hair SOO bad! Yellow gowns – it should be against the law, honestly!" Ino had shrieked, holding the gown against her chest and shuddering convulsively), a casual observer would be none the wiser today.

Sakura's heart squeezed in equal parts of excitement, pride, and nostalgia as she watched her friends march up to the podium single-file. A low, pulsing thrum in her ears hallmarked the blood rushing to her face – it was here, and she had no idea whether to feel happy or sad as this page in her life was turned.

She never heard her name called, but knew it was her turn when the carefully ordered line Kurenai-sensei had ushered them into parted to reveal the stage.

Her fingers tingled as they curled around the diploma. She met Iruka-sensei's eyes and beamed; he smiled right back.

"I'll expect you to be graduating at the top of your med-school class, too," he whispered, shaking her hand in congratulatory fashion. "You go and show that not only delinquents come outta this school, and your old sensei can still turn out a good one every now and again, hey?"

"Of course, sensei." Her eyes stung, but she told herself it was from the heat. She blinked harder.

"Don't forget any of this, Sakura Haruno," he murmured.

And just like that, one part of her life was over, and another was just beginning – a page turned, a new history in the making.. Tears prickled at her eyes, making the graduation caps whirling madly towards the gymnasium ceiling only a blur. They marched out in double-rows again, and cliques of friends gathered outside the gymnasium door in equal parts whoops of joy and tears of sorrow.

"Stop crying, you're gonna smear your makeup, stupid," Ino admonished laughingly – saying nothing for the mascara tears smearing the apple of her own cheeks. Sakura choked a watery laugh.

"No matter what, we'll always be best friends – promise me!" the blonde girl demanded bossily.

Behind her, Shikimaru snorted, rolling his eyes at the girls overly emotional blubbering and hugs. "Some tacky graduation gowns and a piece of paper don't elicit a sudden change in human dynamics," he recited blandly.

"Damn right!" Naruto jeered, dodging abruptly through the throng of seniors, spectators, and families in a sudden impromptu appearance worthy of a ninja. Before they could dodge, he whipped an arm around both Ino and Shikimaru's necks, squeezing them in spite of their protests and squirming efforts to be free.

Naruto's silent, solemn shadow was staring over the begrudging mass of group hug. When the tingling sensation of being watched finally crawled up her neck and made ignoring him an impossibility, she met Sasuke's gaze. She looked at him, looking at her, and the fond smile slipped from her lips.

"No… I suppose they don't," he murmured quietly. If she had to give the look on his face a name, she might have called it regret.

"Ino, Shikimaru, Naruto… I'll email you… I've gotta go, mom is calling... Probably time for some commemorative photos, y'know?" She turned, unwittingly elbowing someone in the process, but that didn't deter her. Skillfully, she pushed into the crowd, intent on disappearing.

"Sakura!" Her name sounded choked, as if he hadn't fully intended on calling out to her so frantically. Dimly, she registered a few muffled "oof!"s and "watch where you're going"s behind her as he pushed to catch up. "Sakura, wait! I –"

Her feet stuck, but only for a moment. Almost as an afterthought, she let her gaze slide to the Uchiha one last time. His mouth moved, but he seemed at a loss for words. He snapped his mouth shut, and the look on his face was _pleading_.

Her heart tore, and yet, the only words she could find to offer were a demure, "Good luck, Sasuke."

The real meaning behind the words rang like a shot in the dark – real and present, but never in a tangible sense. '_Good bye, Sasuke. I plan on keeping up with the others, but not you. Never you._'

A new leaf. She turned the page on the bane that was Uchiha Sasuke, and breathed a little easier for it.

That night, she dreamed.

=0=

"_Please! Please bring Sasuke back!" She needed him like a sunflower needed the bright guidance of the sun. Never mind that the sun's path was ever the same – an unerring, predictable track of east-to-west. Never mind that it was forever out of reach._

_She needed him like she needed air._

… _She needed him like an addict needed the burning thrum of acid in her veins, melting away a world she could never deal with on her own._

_Sasuke. Sasuke. Sasuke._

_She dreamed of herself – a weeping, snot-nosed, chubby-cheeked mess of flesh without even an ounce of the strength of character needed to call that flesh 'human' rather than 'biological mass'. She dreamed of being an entity outside of her physical being, looking down on herself in that way that you only could in dreams – and what she saw disgusted and horrified her._

"_Weak… You're so weak…"_

_And even when she dreamed of that sniveling-brat-Sakura begging to be mentored by someone of strength and character, she saw only the physicality of it. Mentally, the sniveling-brat whirred away on a treadmill, running, running, running, never moving an inch._

_Waste of space. Weak, weak, weak…_

_And when she met him again – so resolved to show how strong she had become – when she _died_, when he _killed her_ – she realized –_

_She had thrown it all away for him. Friends. Goals. Strength. _Herself_. She had thrown it all away for him -_

_And he had thrown _her_ away without even a second glance._

_She wished – she wished – she wished –_

_For a lifetime, she had run after him. And now, she was squandering another, running away. She wished –_

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**Enough.**

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The morning after graduation, Sakura awoke slowly, and the journey out of the depth was as if a crushing pressure was being released from her chest. She didn't remember what she had dreamt of. She never did.

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Press stop.

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	5. Chapter 5

Fast forward.

Things change.

Press play.

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One night, at a god-awful hour when little girls were inside dreaming of princes, knights, and dragons, Sakura woke with a groan, a stretch, and an absolutely _aching_ sweet tooth.

When the munchies hit, who was she to argue?

'Thank goodness for 24-hour gas stations,' she thought, smiling sublimely at her recently acquired Reeces Stix. She was just unlocking her car door to go home when she spotted him from the corner of her eye. Judging by the way he was pacing from one side of the open hood to the other, she guessed he didn't know what the heck he was doing.

The hand haphazardly grabbing into his spiky black locks only helped cement that assumption.

She contemplated just driving away and leaving him like that – had even opened the door to her car and started to slide in – but a stab of guilt stopped her. Never let it be said that Haruna Sakura was anything but kind.

Tossing her candy to the passenger seat, Sakura heaved a sigh as she slammed the driver's side door shut and walked around the car, cautiously approaching the stranded youth.

"Would you like to use my cell phone?" she asked politely, by way of announcing her presence.

He paused in his agitated pacing to give her a somewhat harried look – then, upon seeing who was speaking to him, the harried look changed to a downright shocked one. "Sakura?"

"The one and only," she replied with a camouflaging smile, waiting for the familiar panic to smolder inside – but it didn't come. Instead, she almost felt the vague sense of ease that came from greeting an old, familiar friend after a long absence, which was rather ridiculous considering she and Sasuke had never been anything like friends.

He seemed to be frozen as well, as if waiting for her to snap back the invitation and drive away once she realized to whom she was speaking. Upon seeing he wasn't going to reply, she smiled more pointedly and waved the cell phone at him. "I even pay by the minute, so I'm making a _very_ generous offer," she teased.

He looked mildly unsettled – probably with good cause, given she had never voluntarily exchanged a dozen words with him in two decades of acquaintanceship. Nonetheless, he cautiously shook his head. "No, I have a cell. But…" He hesitated, as if unsure whether to even ask.

"But?" she prompted.

"Do you know anyone around here who knows _anything _about cars I could call? I tried the phonebook inside, but it's so late everywhere is closed…"

"Why don't you call your dad?" she asked pragmatically. This was, after all, his hometown. He should have tons of people to call to help in a bind.

"My family won't be back in town until morning. None of them know anything about cars anyway…" He trailed off, clearly at a loss.

Sakura hemmed for a moment. One voice in her head reminded her this was Uchiha Sasuke, the boy whom she had spent the better part of her life avoiding – it certainly wouldn't do to approach him willingly. The other half, however, was an obnoxious voice-over from one of her favorite childhood cartoons, reminding her, '_With great power comes great responsibility, Peter!_"

"Stupid Spiderman kids cartoons, teaching moral obligation guilt trips…" she muttered, knowing the decision was already made.

The dark-haired man frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing!" she chirped, brightening up with a fake smile. "I was just saying, you don't need to use my cell phone to call someone who knows _something_ about cars. I'm right here!"

"Really?" He seemed a quarter intrigued, and three quarters skeptical.

"I bought a little clunker so I'd be forced to learn something along the way." When he continued to look doubtful, she smiled even brighter. "I took auto-tech in high school!"

If anything, the doubtful look on his face intensified, but that just raised the challenge. With confidence, Sakura tucked her cell phone into her back pocket and slowly approached the open hood. She mentally dared him to try something – she would kick his ass back to the feudal era, shannaro!

"I don't know much about them-there German motors," she drawled in deliberate hillbilly by way of disclaimer. "So if I switch some connectors in there and the car only runs in reverse – not my fault!" He looked so horrified that she had to take pity on him and laugh. "Kidding, kidding. I'll be of very limited help, but I'll give her a shot. Are you sure you don't want to call someone and tell them you're going to be late?"

"I just told you my family is out of town," he deadpanned.

"What seems to be the problem then?" She ignored the quip and intoned the closest imitation to a mechanic she could pull, right down to pulling a napkin from her pocket and wiping off invisible grease from her hands.

The act didn't seem to pull one over on him. "It overheated," he replied cautiously. Then, as if to challenge her, he asked, "You know anything about that?"

"Aa," she replied, nodding sagely, as if that told her everything. "I know only too well." She sniffed inside the engine – he looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "It doesn't smell sweet – which would indicate antifreeze leaking or spraying out from backpressure – and I don't smell burning either." He gave her a blank look, and she gave her best imitation of their old highschool teacher Gai's infamous 'nice guy!' thumbs up pose. She pulled out the dipstick, cleaned it on a napkin from her pocket, and checked the oil level. "Oil level looks good… Don't see any puddles beneath the car…"

She stared blankly at the engine, and it took her longer than she'd like to admit to figure out which one of the tanks was the coolant reserve. It simply wouldn't do to flip the wrong lid and hideously disfigure them both with burning steam…

He didn't seem to notice the lag, though – if anything, he must have thought she was staring at the engine to glean knowledge through osmosis. For all he seemed to know about cars, she could say just that and he'd probably believe her.

The sense of empowerment was getting to her head. "Well, the coolant looks a little low – that _could_ be the culprit. But, let's check to make sure it's flowing alright – if the coolant hoses get plugged, that'd certainly toast that engine up right quick…" She looked around for the hoses feeding the overflow tank, but when she didn't see them, she groaned irritably.

"What?" Sasuke asked, looking perturbed. She might have thought 'panicked', but after a moments consideration, Sakura decided Uchiha's did not do 'panicked'.

"Nothing – the coolant hoses must run from below. I'm going to have to lean under there to get to them – I need you to watch the overflow tank here and tell me if you see it bubble when I squeeze the hoses, ok?"

"Ok," he replied, looking somewhat relieved that _he_ wasn't going to be the one to have to lay in whatever disgusting unmentionables coated the gas station parking lot. In his defense, he was dressed rather nicely.

"Stupid German engineering…" Sakura grumbled. Haphazardly, she laid back onto the ground and scooted a little under the front fender, squinting up into the darkness. She sure as hell wasn't sticking her hand out until she knew what she was grabbing for – too much stuff to get burned on. "So have you overheated before?" she called out after the silence had drawn on for long enough to probably make him nervous about a stranger poking around beneath his car.

"Uh – what?" He coughed, as if caught off guard by her question, then seemed to come back to himself. "Oh, it's not mine, it's a rental," he replied hurriedly. Maybe he was embarrassed to be seen in a sedan instead of his usual little sleek black number.

"Then who cares if it overheats?" Sakura quipped, peeking her head back out to grin at him. Sasuke looked slightly horrified – probably because she had just expressed a lack of care for the longevity of a vehicle whose rental company had his credit card number. And because her hands were buried in before-mentioned car's innards.

Or maybe because he had had to hurriedly tear his eyes away from the vicinity of her legs when she abruptly looked back out from her sprawled position under his car.

She was proven right on two accounts when his cheeks lit up with a very un-Uchiha-Sasuke-like blush, and he stammered a delayed indignant squawk. "Hey! I didn't buy the supplemental insurance on this piece of crap, I can't afford for it to blow up!"

"First of all, it's probably not going to 'blow up'," Sakura replied, ducking back under the fender. She squeezed the hose running from the reserve to the alternator. "Is the reserve bubbling?"

"Uh… yeah…?" He seemed to be concentrating too hard on a simple question, but she figure she could probably (… probably) take the answer for face value.

"Ok. Second of all, supplemental insurance is a crock. If you have regular car insurance, it applies to any car you drive – including rentals." Carefully, she found the second hose that ran from the alternator to the engine and squeezed. "Bubbling?"

"Yeah." The answer was far more confident this time. "I don't have regular car insurance right now, because I don't have a car – I live in the city, so I usually take public transportation. So what now, Ms. Smarty Pants?"

"Oh. Never mind then, you're totally screwed," she quipped playfully. He looked slightly green, until he saw her peek back up around the engine with a belying smile. "I'm just kidding. I don't smell any burning – the car was still running smooth, right? And you pulled over as soon as the light came on?" Carefully, she slid back out from under the car and lumbered back to her feet, brushing her hands briskly off on the thigh of her jeans. "So you're still good. Does this thing have a temperature gage or a dummy light?"

"Is a dummy light a light that comes on and says 'hot'?"

Sakura ignored the urge to tell him that was a _dummy question_ or shoot off a sarcastic 'seeing as that is not a temperature gage, survey says…' and instead replied with a patient, "Yes."

"Then a dummy light."

"Aa." She nodded. "Well, if you had a gage, we would be able to make a slightly more informed diagnosis, because we would know if it had been inching up on the trip – but with a light, you never know. Could be a fuse, an electrical glitch setting off the sensor – could be the sensor itself is busted. The thermostat might have stuck. Or, it could be that the engine _was_ overheating."

"Sounds complicated," Sasuke replied glumly. Sakura snorted.

"This, complicated? Please! You should see the inner workings of the human body!" She barked out an admittedly unfeminine laugh, and he looked distinctly put off. "I'm training to be a doctor, Sasuke," she chuckled in her most placating manner.

For a moment, he looked vastly impressed. "Really?"

"Yup."

Again, that suspicious look returned. "Why do you know about cars, then?" As if her approaching and offering her help was some sneaky way to pull one over on him. Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I told you – I took auto-tech in high school, and I bought a clunker that would force me to learn more as I go. It wouldn't do to be a doctor who let's mechanics charge her for headlight fluid. Or fix the flux capacitor. Or whatever."

"I _wish_ they'd fix the flux capacitor on my car..." the Uchiha muttered with a surprisingly wry curl of his lip.

"You have anything you need to go back in time to fix?" Sakura asked, a wry smile of her own tugging at her lips. She couldn't be sure, but she had a sneaking suspicion that her eyes might be twinkling.

His eyes flickered to the side. "Maybe," he demurred. Before she could prod him on his sudden melancholy, he changed the topic. "Why did you take auto-tech in high school?"

"Why didn't you?" she quipped, refusing to allow her wry smile to die. After a moment, the corner of his lip tugged back up in response.

"Touche." Then, "Isn't that sorta a… boy class?"

"Yup. Maybe you should've taken it. It couldn't have hurt… maybe those rumors about you being _too pretty_ wouldn't have spread like wildfire in a prarie." He frowned at the obvious poke at his masculinity, but the humor in his dark eyes remained unabated. "And then, you wouldn't need to be standing by so helplessly while some _girl_ tinkers around under your hood for you!" she finished with a cheeky wink.

He laughed then, and for some reason she was surprised by how free and easy the sound was. She had never quite figured out why his laughs surprised her so much, as if she never expected them from him.

They lapsed into a silence that was surprisingly companionable given their history. It was almost like a camaraderie, the way the two stared sagely under the hood, until Sakura finally broke the silence with a question.. "So why a rental – what happened to your fancy-schmancy sports car?" If the grapevine could be trusted, she already had a good idea why, but she asked anyway.

"It's put away until I graduate," he replied vaguely. "Saves on insurance money."

But everyone knew that money wasn't really an issue for the Uchiha. While his mom made decently-good money as a police chief, his dad had come into the marriage with some _good_ money from his self-start security business. The Mangekyo Eye security sticker was the scourge of thieves everywhere, or so she was told.

Smirking, Sakura goaded him. "Really? Rumor on the street was that it had something to do with dares, drag racing, and calls from a college dean to _some_ peoples parents about student driving privileges…"

Properly caught, Sasuke scowled. "Why did you even ask if you already knew the answer?"

"I didn't already know the answer until you just pretty much told me with _that_ reaction," she teased. Playfully, she bumped her shoulder against his – and then immediately regretted it when his shocked gaze locked with her own. The playful mood seized and caught in her chest.

"Are you not… angry with me anymore?" he asked suddenly, the question spilling from his mouth with such abruptness that she doubted he had time to think it through before saying it. He didn't seem abashed though, and he stared at her so openly that almost made her squirm inside.

"I wasn't ever angry with you," she murmured quietly.

"Then what's changed?" he persisted.

She had had a chance to grow up and mature and become independent and fierce and awesome, all without him, and for some reason, that meant something. She didn't understand quite why, or how, but it made all the world of difference. When she had met him as a child, he had loomed over her like a shadow – always threatening in some unconscious, subliminal way that she didn't quite understand, but felt nonetheless. But now… now, as he stood beside her, wide eyed but calm and – dare she say, vulnerable – he didn't seem so threatening.

But she couldn't explain that to him – she barely understood it herself. And so, she shrugged. "You don't seem like such a thing to be afraid of anymore," she replied, honestly.

He was quiet for a few moments, and then, quietly, he replied, "I'm glad."

"Aa." Then, she _did_ squirm, because even while she wasn't afraid of him anymore, that heavy gaze made her uncomfortable just the same. And so, with a show of bravado, she stuck her thumb back up and struck another 'nice guy' pose. "You should be! Otherwise you'd be stranded here without a knight in shining sequins to save you! Now let's top up that coolant reserve so you can be on your merry way!"

He seemed about to say something – paused, closed his mouth, then nodded. "Thank you, Sakura," he murmured, quiet but sincere.

Sakura's heart squeezed painfully in her chest, and for the life of her, she couldn't decide if it was in a bad way… or a good one.

=0=

Press stop.

=0=


	6. Chapter 6

Fast forward.

Natural course of things.

Press play.

=0=

The next time the old high-school crew had a big shindig, Sakura didn't go out of her way to avoid it like she usually did. It's not that she avoided seeing her friends –to the contrary, she made time for them quite frequently – but whenever it went from "gathering" to "party", she historically avoided simply because she knew a certain 'Uchiha' would have been included on the guest list…

But high school was over, time had passed, and things had changed…. '_Maybe it's time to stop being such a 'fraidy cat_,' Sakura thought with a carefree shrug – and this time, when her eyes caught his as she made her away around the campfire in Tenten's backyard, she only tipped her chin up and cocked two fingers at him in salute. '_And if he pulls anything funny, I'll just sneak in and pull all the fuses on his fancy graduation-car, shannaro!_'

"Yo," she greeted, smile inching a little bigger at her own inner monologue. "Still 'saving on insurance money'?" this asked with fingered quotation marks in the air. Naruto immediately burst out laughing, knuckling Sasuke hard in the shoulder and chortling something about 'bs cover stories' and 'blowing it' before wandering off in search of the elusive promised 'free grub'.

Sasuke watched him go before meeting her gaze and slowly tipping his chin. "Aa," he responded. His smile was barely there – but it _was_ there, if you knew where to look. "Not for long. Soon I'll be 'saving the general public' instead. I'm graduating in a week."

"Hopefully the 'general public' doesn't need saving from car troubles," Sakura jeered, unable to resist teasing at an obvious weak spot in his 'I have it under control, I can do anything, I'm such a bad ass' demeanor. "Whatever would you do then?"

Sasuke leaned back, incorporating a casual shrug into a bone-clicking stretch. Or maybe it was the fire that popped. "Wait for a 'knight in shining sequins' to come, I suppose," he replied, catching her eye in a sidelong glance. They shared a wry smile.

This time, when her stomach flipped, though she still couldn't decide whether it was good or bad, she finally decided she didn't need to.

And when Sasuke later got up to refill his cup, and took the empty seat next to her when he returned instead of the one he had vacated previous… she decided not to run away.

=0=

Two weeks later, when the entrance to the gas-station dinged merrily to announce the entrance of two new patrons, she was only half surprised to see who it was.

"Well don't you two look handsome in your uniforms?"

Sasuke coughed brusquely and eyed the newspaper racks, trying to look as official and un-affected by the compliment as possible, even if his suddenly rose-brushed cheeks gave away his game. Naruto, meanwhile, beamed at the rare compliment.

"Of course I do! I look handsome in _anything_, Sakura-chan!" he primped. "Do you remember when Ms. Kurenai used to always say girls like guys in ties? She was right, right? Right?"

Sakura grinned, resisting the urge to pat the chipper boy on the head as she would any over-exuberant child. "That's right, Naruto."

"The ties are fake, though. Did you know real cops don't wear real ties? Safety issue, they said at the academy. So no one can grab them. Can you believe it? Who'd try to grab me anyway? They'd have to be crazy! I mean, who would even think they'd have a chance at taking me down, right? Not even Sasuke-teme can take me down – not really!"

"Right," Sakura agreed amicably. Her grin grew a little wider as she saw Sasuke sighing and shaking his head. If she hadn't witnessed the Uchiha putting up with Naruto's rambunctiousness their entire lives, she would have questioned the partnership. As it were… it made sense, now. They were a good balance to each other, really – it surprised her, sometimes, that she had come this far in her life being totally baffled as to what Naruto could possibly see in the Uchiha.

He wasn't so bad; not really.

Naruto spotted some pork rinds and wandered off to survey the aisles of junk food; Sakura eyed him dubiously for a few seconds before shrugging to herself, turning her attention back to the textbook splayed on the counter before her. She had barely even found where she left off when Sasuke's quiet voice interrupted.

"So you work the nightshift here?"

"Yup. Helps give some pocket money while I'm going to school. And plus, it's so quiet around here at night that I can usually get some studying in too."

"Mm," Sasuke nodded. He rocked back on his heels and looked to be surveying the walls; if Sakura didn't know him better, she might have even said he was acting nervous.

"You have a panic button, of course," he spoke abruptly. Sakura cocked her head at the odd question, but nodded.

"Of course," she replied.

"You wouldn't hesitate to use it if you need it," he pressed. He had his head turned as if to better survey the security camera in the corner, but he was watching her closely from the corner of his eye.

"Of course not," she drolled indulgently, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "It's not like anyone gets terribly belligerent, anyway. Just the occasional drunk getting peevish that we can't sell alcohol after 2am."

"Mm," he nodded, but something still seemed to be on his mind, so she waited expectantly for him to continue. After several long moments of quiet of the store was interrupted by the loud chirping of the radios clipped to both Naruto and Sasuke's waists.

"Domestic dispute on Center, please respond," a bored sounding dispatcher inquired.

"Officer's Naruto and Sasuke will TAKE THAT JOB!" Naruto bellowed almost instantaneously into the walkie-talkie. How he had unclipped it from his belt and gotten it to his mouth that fast, who knew. It was one of life's great mysteries.

"Don't shout into your set," the now peevish sounding dispatcher replied.

"OKAY!" Naruto shouted; the radio whined annoying feedback from the misuse. Sakura giggled – then stopped short, confused, when she noticed Sasuke's hand held out in front of her face, a strip of paper dangling between his fingers.

"Eh?"

"Take it," he replied brusquely, looking everywhere but at her face. "We've gotta go."

When she only continued to stare, he sighed with long-suffering patience and reached over the counter to take her hand, and gently pressed the paper into it. "In case it's something that isn't enough to want to use the panic button – you should know how to get a hold of us. For anything."

And then, abruptly, he spun on his heel and marched out of the gas station, barking an irritable, "Hurry up, dobe!" over his shoulder to shake Naruto out of his shouting match over the walkie-talkie.

The door-bells chimed one last time, and Sakura was once again left alone in the solitary confines of the Wesco gas station. Her wrist tingled where he had grabbed it, and her palm tingled where he had pressed the slip of paper into it.

She stared at the ten hastily scrawled digits for a long time.

He had to have known that she already had Naruto's cell. If she needed to get a hold of them, she already had the means. Really, she hadn't needed this at all…

But…

Sakura pulled her cell phone from her pocket, and slowly, carefully, punched in the 10 digits.

'Save contact?' the cheery little red cell queried.

Her finger hovered over the button for a long time.

=0=

Press _yes_.

=0=


	7. Chapter 7

Fast forward.

Work and play.

Press play.

=0=

"Oh – _oh!_ I've been meaning to ask - is that nasty little tuna can at the last pump _yours_?" Naruto, in typical Naruto fashion, was bouncing on his heels in excitement. He looked positively titillated by the question.

The answer was obvious – the store was empty except for them and her, so it only went to reason that the one car in the lot was hers. It wasn't so much an issue with answering an inane question, as it was the blatant insult to her _faithful steed _that set her hackles up.

Sakura could almost feel a vein popping in her forehead. After a deep, calming breath, she folded her hands before her and replied with a prim, "No, I don't know anything about a _nasty little tuna can_. If you're referring to the handsome blue Civic named Richard staunchly guarding the lot, then yes, that would be my very own."

"Richard?" Naruto squawked. He slapped his hands on the counter in front of her; she ignored his antics, instead lifting her chin to sniff daintily.

"The Lionhearted," Sakura confirmed with a stolid nod.

Even Sasuke looked up at that, an expression on his face flickering between incredulous and just plain doubtful. "The Lionhearted," he repeated, frowning as if he was waiting for her to shout 'got you!' at any moment.

"Yes. The Lionhearted: brave and faithful and tough."

"And like, a hundred years old…" Naruto sniggered.

"Fifteen," Sakura corrected blithely.

"A decade _and a half_!" He ended a full octave higher than he started, sounding as affronted as if she had just told him she liked eating babies for breakfast. "That's like… almost as old as you are!"

"Sure – there's only a 46% difference in age – that's practically the same." Sakura rolled her eyes. At 22 years old – and a Bachelor's of Science holder to boot – being called 15 years old was a bit insulting.

"In car years, that's like... _really_ old though," Naruto persisted, and it was all she could do to keep from sighing and rolling her eyes.

"Great gas mileage, cheap parts, easy to work on… Plus I picked it up _on the cheap_ – like seriously, so cheap I almost feel like I should be arrested on the spot. Maybe you should cuff me, officers?" She petulantly cocked a hip and offered her wrists in what she figured was her best cheeky 'cuff me' pose. Naruto snorted in laughter, and Sasuke (who she had thought had tuned out of the conversation earlier) spluttered in a coughing fit that may or may not have been related to the somewhat provocative pose.

"What's not to love? Right Sasuke?" She pursed her lips and batted her eyes at the still-coughing officer.

"Um, the rust?" Naruto ventured, when Sasuke's coughs only got worse.

Sakura scoffed, offended. "Honda's do not 'rust.'" She paused for dramatic effect. "They simply develop a little 'Honda rot.'"

"Honda rot," Naruto deadpanned. Sakura smiled cheerily at him.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand our love," she sniffed.

Just then, the radios buckled at their waists simultaneously broke into static and a calm, masculine staccato. "Unit 4, we have a 390 on Parson – it looks like you're closest to the scene, can you check it out, over?"

"Roger that, base, we're on our way," Sasuke sent back into the handset, apparently having finally cleared his throat of its obstruction. He still looked a little red in the face, though.

"_Action, yess!_" Naruto cheered, spilling some coffee onto the floor in the midst of his over-exuberant dance. "Oops – erm, sorry…" Sakura raised an eyebrow at him, and he ducked his head, apparently afraid of retribution. "See you next week, Sakura-chan!" he cheered, then made an overly hasty escape. The bell was only just chiming when he was already slamming the cruiser door shut across the parking lot.

Sakura smirked triumphantly. Yes, she was going to have to get the mop back out, but she had just asserted dominance over a _man in uniform_, shannaro!

A rap of knuckles on the counter tore her eyes away from where they lingered on Naruto's retreat, back to Sasuke – who was suddenly standing directly in front of her, albeit across the counter. She jumped, half because she hadn't noticed his approach, and half because the intensity of his gaze always left shivers running up her spine.

"Can I help you?" she chirped, then blushed furiously because she had reverted back to the 'Good morning, welcome to Wesco' tone she used when someone only just walked in the front door – not quite the tone one would use to address someone who had, for all intensive purposes, been lingering in the store for the last hour and a half.

For a moment, she thought perhaps he hadn't even noticed – but then he smirked and arched a brow at her, and she blushed all the harder. "You actually work on that car? You weren't just pulling my leg, that time?"

"I don't always have the right tools, or the strength, or enough hands – but when I can, yeah.. I downloaded a copy of the shop manual online –" he arched his brow again, and she hurriedly added, " – totally legally – _totally –_ and anyway – I bought an old car so I'd get a chance to slam around in there a little –" If anything, his brow arched a little higher, and this time she found her own cheeks warming a little. "Uh, y'know, see how things work in there. Under the hood, that is. Of a car. Just so, like, I'd know something about cars – so no one would, like, charge me for headlight fluid or something sometime down the road… or something…"

Realizing she had said 'like' in two sentences in a row, and that she was effectively babbling, and that he had just gotten a call and was on his way out _on official polite business_ to boot, she snapped her mouth shut and frowned fiercely. She was _past_ that stage in her life – she was _not_ an insipid, sniveling female, and she would _not_ act like one.

Admittedly, it was sort of hard not to under his intense dark gaze.

"Oh," he replied coolly, as if she hadn't just made a total idiot of herself. He was giving her an odd sort of look – she couldn't tell if he was somewhat impressed, or just plain doubting that she had just said. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the incessant chirping of his radio cut him off.

"Hey bastard, stop chatting up Sakura and get your ass out here! 390, remember? You're a cop, remember? You're on duty, remember?" Naruto's disembodied voice ranted in hyper succession. "You're faithful partner is –"

"Drunks aren't that fast moving, Naruto…" Sasuke snapped the radio off with an eye roll and a sigh – but his back was turned, and he was already retreating towards the door.

Once the door chimed, she heaved a sigh – whether it was of relief or regret, she wasn't entirely sure, but her chest felt much less constricted now that she was out from under his heavy gaze –

The door chimed again, and she jerked, surprised to see Sasuke leaning back in. "Hey – stay a little more aware of your surroundings when the men in blue are gone, space-cadet," he chided. "And about that… Honda rot, or whatever… If you're 'slamming around' in there, make sure your tetanus shot is up to date."

He quirked a two-fingered salute in parting - the door chimed a final time, and then the quick flash of lights confirmed that the cruiser was gone. For the life of her, Sakura couldn't decide if she was embarrassed for having been surprised twice in a row, flattered by the apparent care for her health – or completely insulted by the digs on her car.

But since she couldn't smother the rueful smirk quirking at her lips, she decided it wasn't so bad, regardless.

=0=

Press pause.

=0=


	8. Chapter 8

Fast forward.

Press play.

=0=

"Whoa – donuts are half off after midnight?"

Sakura eyed the bouncing blonde with a critical eye, cocking an eyebrow expectantly. "Are you sure you should be chasing all that ramen salt with _sugar_?" He had, after all, just downed several cups of the super-cheap-sodium-laden stuff. It hardly seemed like the optimum midnight snack.

"Sugar and _fat_," Sasuke deadpanned from his usual vantage point near the newspaper racks – the place that she was beginning to think of as 'Sasuke's haunt.' If she were perfectly honest with herself, she doubted she could go back to the boring night shift at Wesco without their nightly visits. Sometimes they only passed through and stayed to chat for a few moments; other times – like tonight, when things were unusually quiet – they stayed for _hours_. And as much as she hated to admit it to herself… she was beginning to look forward to those nights above all others.

"Not everyone likes to drink their coffee to match their soul – bitter and _black_," Naruto shouted back, jabbing a finger at his partner. Sasuke sighed and rolled his eyes, but otherwise did not rise to the bait.

Sakura smiled benignly. "Oh, what conflicting interests! On the one hand, I should be an extra-dutiful Wesco employee and promote business by telling you just how delicious each one of those donut varieties is… But on the other hand, I'm wondering if you really need the extra sugar…" She eyed the emptied sugar packets still littering the counter from where he had prepared his coffee. "You're going to crash later, you know. And I bet Sasuke won't be particularly sweet and tender about you drooling on his shoulder. I can't quite decide which is worse for health – the sugar, or the inevitable beating incurred as you work it out of your system…"

"Just because you're studying to be a doctor doesn't mean you can boss me around just yet, believe it!" he shot back. True to form, he was already bending and cherry picking donuts from the case into a box.

Sakura quirked an eyebrow. "'Just yet,' eh? So you're resigning yourself to my tender loving care at _some_ point?"

"He's just resigning himself to the fact that the force has physical requirements for entry, but not for continuation. He realizes that since he won't be moving _up_, he might as well expand… sideways."

Sakura didn't even bother to hide the laughter. Naruto only stuck his tongue out and proceeded to fill a box with way more donuts than any healthy individual should intend to consume in one go. "I'll prove to you guys once and for all that I'm blessed with a high metabolism!"

Sakura giggled, Sasuke rolled his eyes, and Naruto started going on his sugar-laden crusade, and it all felt so… cozy, so normal, that it was almost like they had spent a lifetime together like this – like they had grown up rubbing elbows and chortling over shared jokes, rather than as the disjointed, dysfunctional relationship that had existed until a few short months ago.

When they left, they weren't gone even a quarter of an hour before Sakura realized that the poignant feeling in her chest wasn't relief, or fear, or anything like it…

It was longing.

=0=

At the god-awful crack of dawn, when her finishing duties were complete and her relief was clocked in and all set, Sakura rubbed her eyes tiredly and dragged out the front door with a jaw-cracking yawn. She opened her car door, plopped onto the seat, turned her key…

And nothing.

"Oh shi –"

Sakura blinked, suddenly much, much less tired.

She turned the key again; and again, she was rewarded with the resounding sound of silence. The engine whined, but didn't even sputter or make any other attempt to turn over.

After a few delayed seconds, her radio blared to life. The engine continued to sleep.

"Battery or alternator," she moped, glancing in despair at the dashboard clock winking cheerfully away.

5:45am. She'd feel bad calling her mom or dad to come and pick her up… In fact, she'd feel bad calling _anyone_ for at least another –

Sakura paused, remembering just who else would be awake, just getting off the night shift right now…

She pulled out her cell, scrolled through the contacts list, and then hovered over one she had only recently added, but never called.

She hesitated for an extra second before finally letting out a whooshing breath at herself. "Stop being an idiot, Sakura," she muttered, hit the green "dial" button, and put the phone to her ear to wait.

"Um, hi, Sasuke? It's Sakura… Richard's a little pooped out, so I think I'm gonna need a lift…"

=0=

Somewhere across town, Sasuke flipped his cell phone shut and smiled. Really, truly, smiled.

Naruto, who was just exiting the lockerroom and had missed whatever proceeded the expression, was frankly a little creeped out.

"Later," Sasuke chirped, tossing a carefree flip of the wrist over his shoulder. It wasn't like him to haul out of the station so quickly after duty – usually he insisted on doing some 'end of the night exercises' and stretches and all sorts of other doggedly-rigid-Uchiha kinds of things. Not tonight, he seemed – he was making a rather brisk beeline for the door – and for Sasuke, the carefree stride was akin to what a giddy skip would be on any normal person.

The smile still hadn't left his face.

"Where are you headed that's got you looking like the cat that got the cream?" Naruto called after him.

His only reply was the "clicking" of the door shut behind him.

=0=

Press pause.

=0=


	9. Chapter 9

Fast forward.

Fixing broken things.

Press play.

=0=

"You have the tire off," he deadpanned, staring at the jacked up car with a mixture of… well, blankness and doubt. He was trying to keep a poker face, but his confusion was apparent to any who had been around Uchiha Sasuke enough to read him.

Sakura tapped a wrench in her palm, fake-pouting for all she was worth. "Aren't you impressed?"

"Only that you managed to miss the alternator by… well, its entire product category."

Sakura snorted and rolled her eyes at him before beckoning him to her side. Blandly, she gestured with the wrench "It's too cramped in there to get the alternator out with the tire on, even with small girlish hands like mine… or yours."

Sasuke blinked at her, surprised – once-upon-a-time, she never would have teased him like that. Hell, once-upon-a-time, she never would have let him see her with her hair tied back in a messy ponytail and hidden under a messed dude-rag – whose greased streaks were only overshadowed by those on her tank and jogging pants. And yet, here she was, wholeheartedly experiencing all of the above.

After a long moment of his guarded stare (he clearly didn't know how to take the entire situation), Sakura finally took pity and bumped her shoulder against him. "I'm teasing you, Sasuke," she admonished, as if explaining something very simple to a child.

Maybe it was the hot summer sun beating on them overhead, but she could have sworn she saw his neck flush a little. Sasuke coughed, and then, looking a little more composed, finally deemed it safe enough to jeer back. "I knew this car was nothing but trouble. Taking the _tire_ off to get to the alternator? Really? That's ridiculous."

"Yeah, well, Ino's Kia needed the whole engine lifted to get _her_ alternator out," Sakura quipped back, only half miffed at the attack on her faithful Richard the Lionhearted. "It wasn't even worth it in the end. The thing died again after like a week and a half."

"Then you're lucky you don't drive a Kia," he replied, peering curiously into the open hood.

"No, _you're_ lucky I don't drive a Kia," she shot right back. When he arched a questioning brow, she smirked, "So you won't be over here every other day helping me fix stuff. Y'know, since I'd certainly not be the diehard cheapskate that I am if I didn't take you up on your offer of _free labor_."

"_Cheap_ labor. You're buying me lunch, aren't you?"

She opened her mouth to shoot something right back, then paused. "Am I?" She smiled slowly, tauntingly, and even though she didn't say it, the teasing undertone was still there. '_Like a date?_' She meant for it to be a tease – expected him to blush and shake it off – but he didn't.

"Yeah," Sasuke replied cheekily, tipping his chin in a show of masculine confidence. "It's the least you can do." But even in a display of mock arrogance, she could see him watching her from the corner of his eye, gauging her reaction.

She paused at that – gauged her own reaction – and realized that the thought actually didn't bother her. Not one bit.

The pause lingered for a long moment, before a slow, flirting smile tugged at her lips. "Is it now?" she lilted slyly.

And for a moment, Sasuke's entire face lit up – and for all that he quickly tried to cover it back under a swaggering smirk, there was no mistaking that "kid-on-Christmas" joyful excitement that had been there for a moment.

It warmed her to her very toes.

"Oh yes. And Uchiha labor isn't cheap, y'know – it might take you a few meals to pay this debt off. You sure you can handle it?"

The smile never wavered on her lips. "Yeah. I think I can," she murmured back.

"Good." Satisfaction seemed to ooze from every pore as he shouldered in closer to her, attention now focused squarely under the hood. "Now where do you want me?"

=0=

Sasuke, as it turned out, was rather clueless under the hood. That's not to say he was _useless_ – a strong arm and an extra pair of hands were priceless when it came to jury-rigging the Honda to survive another day – but she couldn't help but to laugh at the third time he groaned, "Wouldn't it just be easier to pay someone else to do this?"

"I am paying… you. In meals, if I recall."

"… Someone who knows what they're doing?"

"Not all of us were born into money, Sasuke-kun," she sing-songed back.

"Says the girl who's going to be a doctor," he muttered. She couldn't see his face since he was lying beneath the car while she peered in from the top, but she could tell by his sullen tone that he didn't exactly enjoy being in a position where his superiority and dominance was not established. Such a position, as it turned out, was beneath her car.

"My children will still drive decade-and-a-half old Honda's. They'll whine since they'll be shown up by all the little Uchiha brats driving their flashy new sports cars, but someday they'll thank me for the rite of passage," she shrugged.

He muttered something she didn't quite make out – then yelped and bit off a few choice curses as his knuckles rapped hard into the engine block.

"Keep a tight hold of that wrench," she grinned cheekily through the block at him. "And what was that? I didn't quite hear you?"

Louder, for her benefit, groused, "I wish you _did_ drive a Kia. At least if the engine had to come out, you'd be forced to stop being such a skinflint and take this rust-can to a professional." For all his grumbling, she heard him clicking the wrench back into place, and he made no move to slide out from under the car.

"First of all: I already told you. It's not rust – it's Honda rot. Second of all, I _am_ a professional… tinkerer, anyway."

"I don't think I like hearing a doctor-in-the-making calling herself a professional tinkerer," his muffled voice replied. A laugh bubbled out of Sakura before she could stop it.

"Then don't schedule surgery with me, Uchiha-san. I'd especially love to see how your insides work!" For emphasis, she goosed his thigh – sticking out from under the car and clearly vulnerable to attack. He squeaked out a rather indignant kind of sound, slammed up into the engine in the momentary instinct to sit up, then groaned like a man much abused as he lost the contest of Uchiha-body-vs-Honda. It was probably a close one, at any rate…

"That was for interrupting my list!" she teased, patting his leg by way of placation. "Anyway, thirdly, if I did have the Kia, I'd just have to use my monstrous strength to lift the engine out, and then you'd be stuck doing all the alternator work by yourself while I held it aloft."

"Monstrous strength?" The quirked eyebrow was audible.

"Yeah. I think if I had a superpower, that'd be it."

"How do you figure?" Now it was a grudging smile that was audible, though she still couldn't see him through the engine block.

"I dunno," she replied flippantly, yanking hard enough on the torque wrench to make Richard's shocks squeak in protest. "I just get a little thrill when I think about, like… smashing mountains beneath my fists and stuff."

"… And stuff."

She nodded decisively. "And stuff."

"And you're going to be a doctor," he deadpanned.

"No one said I was going to be a _nice_ doctor."

"Hn. They sure didn't."

"Sounds like someone's sluicin' for another goosin'. Cruisin' for another bruisin'. Achin' for another breakin'," she sing-songed – then reached out to pat his defenseless leg, just to prove that she had full access to his thigh to pinch if he got unruly. His leg twitched involuntarily, and she burst out laughing.

This time, when he joined her in the hearty laughs, it didn't surprise her at all.

"A doctor with monstrous strength that smashes stuff. Absurd," he sniffed finally, once he was done laughing. Sakura hummed pleasantly as she wheeled away on the wrench. "And way too much power for one person, really."

"Hm, maybe," she shrugged, slowing down slightly as a sense of somber reflection passed over her. "But… I've always had this drive – where, like, I dunno… if I didn't do my best – if I wasn't _the_ best – I was going to… get left behind." She faltered once she realized how deep rooted the words were. Quickly, trying to cover it up, she laughed airily. "Or something. I don't know – it sounds stupid, now that I say it out loud."

"I don't think it's stupid," he replied quietly. She jumped when she felt his cool hand reach out from where he was still lying under the car and gently, reassuringly squeeze her ankle. "My entire life… I felt afraid of… losing everything. Like, someday, I was going to wake up, and it was all going to be gone, and I'd be left with _nothing_."

She couldn't see his face, but she could hear the faint hint of despair lingering in his words. He wasn't humoring her; he was very much telling the truth. Carefully, she let go of her wrench, and laid down on the ground so she was face-to-face with him.

"You'll never be left with _nothing_," she whispered – and then, on impulse, reached out and took his hand. She ran her fingers over his knuckles and smiled. "Never."

"And you'll never be left behind," he replied, so sincere, heartfelt and honest it made her nose ache in that way it always did right before she was going to tear up. And when he carefully thread his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, leaned out from under the car – moving so slowly, so carefully, giving her more than enough ample time to move away if he was making her uncomfortable – when he brushed his lips against hers… she really, truly believed him.

=0=

"_In another time… another place… we could have been great," she whispered. Her fingers were shaking as she reached for his face – and as much as she hated the visible sign of her weakness, she hated the thought of not touching him one last time even more._

_She expected him to deny it; she expected him to tell her to stop being foolish, stop wasting time wishing upon a star, dreaming of a life that could never be. She expected him to tell her she was _annoying_, as he had once before._

_She certainly expected him to knock her hand away._

_Instead, he closed his eyes – and when her weak grasping fingers fell short of him, he knelt, and bowed into her touch – and gods, how could he have such softness and warmth, if only in his skin? Why did her heart still stutter and seize, as if it would burst from her chest at any moment?_

"_In another time… another place… we could have been great," she had said._

"_Aa," he murmured, so quiet the reply barely was. With his head bowed into her touch, his eyes closed, and one knee touching the ground as he knelt before her, it felt like a promise._

_When she grew too weak to hold her hand to his face, she despaired for the loss – but when she went to drop away, she felt his own holding it in its place._

=0=

Press stop.

=0=

Fin.

=0=

A/N: Epilogue?


	10. Chapter 10

Fast forward.

Special feature.

Press play.

=0=

When the munchies hit, who was she to argue?

Swinging her legs rather enthusiastically, Sakura went to hop out of bed – and was stopped when a pair of sinewy-muscled arms tightened around her middle.

Playfully, Sakura nudged her elbow back into the muscled chest.

"Whaaaaat?" Sasuke's sleep-laden voice sounded downright petulant. Everyone knew the Uchiha was a deep sleeper, and a somewhat reluctant waker.

"I want some chocolate," Sakura replied.

"I want to sleep," he deadpanned back, unrepentant.

"Well _I_ want some chocolate." She squirmed, then giggled when a cold nose buried itself _right_ on that tickle spot at the nape of her neck. A little shiver ran up her spine, and she wiggled to try and escape his grip.

"Why don't I give you a treat instead?" he murmured into the back of her neck, voice suddenly low and husky from something other than sleep. A bigger shiver whirred down her nerves as she felt the low, pleased rumble in his chest at her reaction. Sakura jerked in an indeterminate mix of pleasure-pain when his teeth nipped into the back of her neck. Then, as if to make amends, he laved the stinging pinch with his tongue.

"Mmm, yes, I suppose that couldn't hurt," she giggled – then gasped, and that was the only sound she made for a long while.

=0=

"Whaaat, you still want to go?" he groaned (Uchiha's certainly didn't _whine_, no matter how whine-like they sounded) as she slid towards the edge of the bed.

"One shouldn't tamper with fate," Sakura recited rhetorically. "I mean, one time I had these irresistible midnight cravings, and while I was at the gas-station, I met a boy…" His eyes flashed in irritation for a moment, but she only smiled and leaned back to place a warm hand on the naked flesh over his heart. "A boy I hadn't seen in a very long time… We re-met, you might say."

He was quiet for a few moments – but his smile was gentle. "Like fate," he murmured. Then, blushing faintly at the cheesiness of his own words, he averted his eyes. "That's what girls like to hear isn't it?" he quickly added – as if to safeguard his masculinity, lest he be accused of being something like a hopeless romantic.

Sakura smothered a giggle, rubbing her hand soothingly on his chest. "Yeah, like fate… or… maybe like…" She hesitated, scientific mind whirring away, trying to find a better way to describe it. "Maybe… maybe like gravity."

He looked back at her, quirking an eyebrow. "Gravity?" he repeated. One of his hands stroked a line from her chin along her jaw line, around her ear and into her hair, fingering along the nape of her neck.

"Yeah," she murmured, shivering as his fingers brushed a particularly sensitive spot. In her mind, she imagined a ball – throw it as hard as you can, but in the end, gravity still brought it back to earth. She had spent half her life running from him as hard as she could – and yet here she was.

Here _they_ were.

"I guess you're like earth – as hard as I tried to escape, gravity always brought me crashing back."

He snorted gently into the top of her head, but she could tell from the languid tone of his muscles that he wasn't truly upset. "Crashing back? Don't sound so excited."

She leaned into him, inhaling a deep breath of his masculine scent; he hummed quietly, clearly pleased that his ministrations had maneuvered her back against him. She felt his fingers trailing a careful, possessive line down her spine. "Maybe it was inevitable… that I fall for you," she reflected slowly, thoughtfully. "Like, given a hundred times to do it all again… we'd find each other every time."

Sasuke made a low mumbling noise that could only be described as a purr. The careful fingers tracing patterns on her back pressed down a little more solidly, and though she didn't look up to see his face, she could hear the satisfied smile in his voice. "I like to think so."

=0=

"Thank goodness for 24-hour gas stations," Sasuke sniped sardonically, stretching his arms over his head in an over-exaggerated pose meant to demonstrate that her faithful Richard the Lionhearted Civic was too diminutive to house his 6-foot-plus-some frame. Or maybe it was to demonstrate his exasperation that after all that passionate bout, Sakura had still persisted on getting her some chocolate.

She leapt out of the car cheerfully – but before she could make her way into the store, she stopped short at the sight of a sharky-looking boy with spiky white hair standing by his lonesome, staring forlornly into the open hood of his car.

Sakura froze, staring – the car was stopped in the exact same spot Sasuke's had been all those months ago, and the irony was not lost upon her. After a few moments, she felt Sasuke's warm hand pressed against the small of her back. When she looked up at him, she could tell by the quirk of his lips that he was remembering, too.

"Looks like there's no shortage of men waiting for a knight in shining sequins," he quipped, fond smile tugging at his lips.

"Aren't you glad your car broke down first?" Sakura teased.

Sasuke tightened his hold minutely; leaned down, pressed his lips to the top of her head. "I'm glad for a lot of things," he murmured – and though his tone was lilting, his body language spoke of the truth behind the words.

"Thank the German engineers," Sakura replied, nudging him and tilting her chin. "Look, it's a VW."

"Do you think it's the flux capacitor?" he teased.

"Hmmm," Sakura drolled, tapping a finger to her lips as if in serious contemplation. "There's only one way to find out…"

=0=

The irony only increased – the car, as it turned out, was just requiring of a little additional coolant. An easy enough 'repair', though the man (Suigetsu, he said his name was) was flustered enough that the simple fix seemed beyond him.

"Oh man, I'm gonna be so late, Karin is gonna rip me a new one," he kept worrying. At her and Sasuke's questioning looks, he explained, "Karin is my girlfriend. She's sort of a pistol… I'm on my way to visit her at college, but…" He gestured helplessly at the car.

A few bottles full of water and a few minutes of idling later and the cheery little Jetta (cute as a button and brand spanking new, Sakura sniped under her breath to Sasuke, who teasingly bitched and moaned about the age of her car every time she asked him to help on any little repair) was back on its merry way.

Sasuke continued to stare after the Volkswagon long after it had disappeared up the on-ramp back onto the highway. "What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied, shaking himself from the sudden stupor. "I just felt like I knew him for some reason, is all."

"Déjà vu? A glitch in the Matrix?" she teased, poking him in the side. He snatched her wrist mid-poke, yanked her flush against his side, then wrapped an arm securely around her shoulders to hold her there.

"No," he whispered, pressing his lips tightly to the top of her head. He inhaled deeply, and rubbed his thumb back and forth across the nape of her neck. "No glitches here; for the first time in my life, I think everything is just perfect."

"Maybe we've reached terminal velocity," Sakura quipped, pursing her lips expectantly for a kiss.

The Uchiha was more than happy to oblige – though after the kiss, he leaned back and quirked a brow at her. "And if that's nerd-speak for being head-over-heels in love… then yeah, I think I've been there for awhile."

"Terminal velocity isn't 'nerd speak'," she huffed playfully, slipping seamlessly into 'know it all' tone. "It's the term for when an object affected by the acceleration of gravity reaches max speed in trajectory. Or, in other words, when the force of resistance of the medium is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force of gravity. Or –"

"Or, basically, in context, what I said," Sasuke interrupted, totally blasé. When she mock-huffed again, he tweaked her nose.

A few bars of chocolate later, and she was leaving the gas station hand-in-hand with her past, present, and future, when Sasuke paused.

"Hey, Sakura?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you might be onto something with having our children drive older cars before graduating on to fancy ones. I mean, you're right – it forces them to learn something more about cars, y'know? I don't want our sons _or _daughters stuck at a gas station in the middle of the night at the mercy of whoever happens to be around."

Sakura's stomach flipped at the use of the word 'our' – and though she felt her cheeks and ears flushing merrily, she grinned back at him cheekily. "I don't think any Uchiha children will be 'at the mercy' of _anyone_ – between daddy Sasuke and Grandma being fuzz, and Grandpa and Uncle Itachi running Mangekyo Eye security, they'll probably be better off than most."

"For all the good that did me when I was stranded…" he replied sardonically, rolling his eyes.

"I think it worked out alright for you, didn't it?"

"Yeah – but I just happen to be exceptionally lucky," he replied meaningfully, reaching out to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

Ignoring the happy blush still heating her cheeks, she twisted her toe on the gravel coquettishly. "So you'll refrain from complaining the next time we have to work on Richard? I mean, if you expect to be of _any_ help teaching the kids, you have a _long_ way to go yourself!"

"Yare, yare, you're a slave driver!" he laughed – but then tucked his arm around her shoulder affectionately. They climbed into the Honda-of-greatness together, and pulled out of the parking lot where they had re-met thanks to a glitchy German-car and midnight cravings for Reeces Stix – and in the end, none of it smacked of 'coincidence' as much as 'fate'.

=0=

_That night, tucked in the arms of a man she loved through space and time, Sakura dreamed – and for the first time, the dream didn't feel like regret, but rather, hope. Not of things that had passed – but were to come._

_She dreamed of wearing white, and teasingly smearing cake into the lips of the man she loved. She dreamt of smiling children with green eyes and black hair, whining about when they'd be 'ready' for a 'real' car. She dreamed of laughing until her belly ached. She dreamed in not being in any particular hurry, because she had a lifetime and more to get there._

_And she wasn't afraid, or regretful, or sad anymore – because even in this dream world, she recognized this love as one for the ages. It swelled, and brimmed, and runneth over –more than enough to fill a lifetime; more than enough to spill into a thousand more._

_Somehow, she knew that no matter how far apart they were strewn –they'd never truly be apart. Because fate – like gravity – would somehow always bring them back together._

=0=

Fast forward.

The rest of their lives.

Press play.

=0=

_Epilogue Fin_

=0=

A/N: It's been a great ride. Drop me a line and let me know what you thought.

This one has been a pleasure to write – I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have other Naruto stories up, but they're certainly of a darker variety than this piece. This was my first foray into "slice-of-life romance", so your perspective and feedback = mana to power my work!

Special thanks to everyone who reviewed, especially Miko-chan – your reviews brought a huge grin to my face!


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